First major construction under way on 49ers stadium

The first major construction is underway to build a new San Francisco 49ers football stadium in Santa Clara.

Crews are drilling 75 feet into the ground, then they will fill it with grout for the foundation that will support the stadium. Central Concrete is the local company that is bringing in the concrete on trucks. The drums of the trucks have been painted with 49ers logos. Forty-eight trucks will bring all the concrete and it will take crews 25 days to drill all of the holes. It may not be as exciting as perhaps seeing the stadium framework, or the chairs, but crews say it is a very big step.

"This is really the first structural element. This will be the piles that are averaged out to 55 feet. They go very deep and there are over 3,000 of them. This is a huge operation, so in the life of a construction project this is a big deal," said project executive Jack Hill.

The 69,000 seat stadium is scheduled to open in the 2014 season. It will run on solar power and use reclaimed water on the field.

The stadium will cost about $1 billion and they hope it will employ up to 1,700 people. Santa Clara city officials have big plans to develop the area around it.